He wanted to stay. He really did. But he couldn't. Carol was safe here in the Kingdom and that clown Ezekiel had more or less made Carol his "queen". Fucking stupid shit if you asked him. All these power-horny dumbasses made him feel sick. And seeing Carol smile again, feeling better and knowing it wasn't because of him made him feel even sicker. It was time to get the fuck out of here. Get back to Alexandria. Why, he didn't really know. There wasn't anything for him there anymore. But Rick was a mess and Negan's threat was hella real and Judith, he needed to keep her safe. Lil' asskicker, he felt a tiny warmth thinking of her. At least someone still needed him and Judith was too small to do anything stupid such a leaving. He was looking forward to see Tobin's sorry face though. He couldn't keep her either. Thank fucking God!
So he was preparing to leave the Kingdom now that his shoulder was mostly healed. They had offered him a horse, but the last time he sat on one hadn't been a success story and he'd found a bike outside the fences that had been easy to fix. An old Sportster and if he was true to himself, it was his new love and he couldn't wait to get on it and just forget everything. Forget Carol, forget everything that had happen, Denise, Dwight, Negan, every death he was responsible for. Just go back to Alexandria, make sure things were in order and if they didn't seem to need him anymore, he was gonna head back home south again. The DC area was too fucking crowded anyway. He had managed to take of himself for over 40 years and honestly, life was easier now. He didn't need nobody. Who knew, maybe he could check out the prison, see if it was habitable again. He'd liked that place. It'd been good times. He felt a tiny dagger in his heart, thinking back to that time, he tried so hard to not see Carol smiling at him in head. Nah, the prison was probably a bad idea. Too many memories. Good memories.
He hadn't really understood what had happened when he saw Carol again, after the saviors had dumped his half-dead sorry ass outside the Kingdom. He'd been so happy, seeing her by his bed one day and he swore she had been happy too, but when he'd woken up a few days later and asked for her, she hadn't come. She didn't want to see him, they said. At first he thought she was just not feeling well, hell he sure as fuck didn't. They'd said she's been injured too and was healing. So he had let it go. They would see each other soon enough. At least she was safe. But when he was finally up and walking around and he met her in the schoolyard one afternoon, she hadn't looked happy so see him at all. It had been so confusing that he hadn't known what to do. She didn't look like the Carol he had known at all. She had new types of clothes on and she looked at him like she didn't want acknowledge she knew him. So eventually he had just nodded at her and kept on walking. After a couple of minutes he'd sat down on a bench under a tree, exhausted just by that short walk, frustrated at himself for being so weak, and when he had looked up and around, he'd seen Carol smiling and talking with some of the residents on the other side of the schoolyard. So she wasn't really ill, she just didn't want to see him. The pain that hit him had blackened out the physical exhaustion that he felt. He forgot to breathe and the world was spinning. He had lost her. For real this time.
So he couldn't stay. He wouldn't stay. If Carol didn't want him there, he would leave. He would let her be free of him. She obviously was doing so much better without him and their family. It hurt and angered him that she had chosen this path, but she seemed to know what she was doing. She always had. She was strong like that.
He was fastening a bag with the few possessions he had left on the sissy bar, checking everything over once again as he turned and looked over the main school building which was the heart of the Kingdom. There were kids outside the entrance playing, a group of girls were double dutching under the blue sky, and birds were chirping in the trees, it all seemed so completely normal. Just like things had felt in Alexandria at first, creepily normal, a world he knew he didn't fit into. But there was a war going on outside the walls, a war that was affecting the Kingdom too. He hadn't decided yet if he was going to stay and fight it or leave. Time would tell. Right now he just had to get the hell out of here. The longing for solitude was itching under his skin. He couldn't think straight in here, not with her around. There was that tiny dagger in his chest again.
He kick-started the bike and the engine roar probably woke up the rest of the population this September morning. The custom-made bike with short exhaust pipes wasn't the most silent vehicle, it would surely attract walkers but on the other hand, he would outrun them. Besides, he'd always wanted a bike like this, never could afford it. Merle would have been jealous. Merle would've…
'You're doin' the right thing, baby brother. Can't have ungrateful bitches around like that…' But maybe Carol was right though, he had screwed up big time. Glenn was dead because of him and his fucking temper. Carol would be better off without him fucking everything up. 'Mmhm, that's what I kept tellin' you brother, she was gonna leave you sooner or later. Don't want your sorry ass.' Daryl felt his chest tighten but he pushed the pain down. 'Go be a true Dixon now Darlina. Dixons don't need nobody.' Well, us Dixons are pretty damn good at leaving, ain't we Merle? Merle just cracked a wicked smile at him in his head but then he thought of the last days they had spent together. He never would have thought he'd seen Merle as distraught as he was when he saw his scars. And then he had seen Carol speak to Merle an evening at the prison and Merle hadn't really been Merle after that. He wondered what she had actually said. And Merle had sacrificed himself for them, going after the Governor. He'd never done anything like that before…
He rolled up to the gate, the guards saw him and he nodded at him. They nodded back and started opening the gate. He turned around and looked back one last time, not willing to admit he was looking after a certain silver-haired queen, but looked he did. He didn't see her though. He sighed, turned on the gas throttle and sped out of the Kingdom.